Eskom's finance boss retired with a 90% pay rise in his final year

90%.

That is how much more Eskom paid its chief financial officer in his last full year on the job than it paid him the year before. Calib Cassim retired as Eskom's Group Chief Financial Officer on 31 October 2026, after 24 years at the power utility.

His pay for the year to March 2026 came to R13.52 million, up from about R7.1 million the year before, Eskom's own financial disclosures show. That is more than the R12.18 million paid to Eskom's chief executive, Dan Marokane, his own boss.

Cassim is the man who had to find the money to keep Eskom running through South Africa's worst blackouts, a CEO scandal, and now a surprise return to profit. His exit closes one of the longest-running chapters at a company most households only think about when the power goes out or the bill goes up.

Who is Calib Cassim, and why does Eskom thank him?

Cassim joined Eskom in 2001. He worked his way up through the regulation side of the business before the board made him Group CFO in November 2018.

In February 2023, Eskom was in crisis. CEO André de Ruyter quit with immediate effect after an explosive TV interview in which he accused people inside and outside the company of corruption, and said he had survived an attempt to poison him with cyanide. The board needed someone to run Eskom the next morning. It turned to Cassim, its own finance chief, rather than bring in an outsider.

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He ran the company as acting CEO for just over a year, on top of his CFO job, while South Africa went through its worst year of power cuts on record. He handed the chief executive chair to Dan Marokane on 1 March 2024 and went back to being CFO full time.

Eskom's own statement on his exit says he "played a key role in strengthening Eskom's financial position". It called his retirement, coming as Eskom returns to profit, "a fitting milestone".

Photo: Paul Scott from South Africa / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Why did his pay jump by 90% in his final year?

Most of the jump was one payment. Eskom's disclosures break his R13.52 million package into four parts: A guaranteed salary of R6.4 million, a short-term bonus of just over R2 million, no long-term bonus at all, and R5.15 million in other payments.

That last figure is mostly a single pension top-up worth R4.8 million. Eskom paid it to make up for pensionable service Cassim lost while he was on a fixed-term contract between 2018 and 2023, adding back about three years and two months of pension credit before he retired.

Work backward from the 90.78% rise Eskom disclosed, and his pay the year before comes to about R7.1 million. The pension top-up alone was bigger than most South Africans earn in several years at work.

7.10RmCassim 2025

12.18RmMarokane 2026

13.52RmCassim 2026

Cassim 2025	7.10Rm
Marokane 2026	12.18Rm
Cassim 2026	13.52Rm

Source: Eskom remuneration disclosures, reported by Daily Investor. Cassim's 2025 figure is calculated from Eskom's stated 90.78% year-on-year increase.

Did he really earn more than his own boss?

Yes. On Eskom's own numbers, Cassim's R13.52 million beat CEO Dan Marokane's R12.18 million for the same financial year, a gap of about R1.34 million, or roughly 11% more.

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Neither man took home a long-term bonus that year. Eskom says the performance targets for those payouts simply were not met. The pay gap came entirely from Cassim's pension catch-up, not from bonuses or a bigger salary.

Photo: Idyllic press / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

What does Eskom look like financially as he leaves?

Much healthier than when he started. Eskom made a profit of R30.3 billion for the year to March 2026, more than double the year before, even while selling the least electricity it has sold in 18 years. Higher tariffs covered the drop in sales.

That turnaround followed years of multi-billion-rand losses and record power cuts under de Ruyter, through the year Cassim ran the company himself, and into the calmer period under Marokane. South Africa had 329 days of power cuts in 2024 alone. By the time Cassim retired, the lights had stayed on for well over a year.

Eskom still carries old debts. Towns and cities across the country owe it R111.6 billion in unpaid bills, money Cassim's finance team spent years trying to collect. Eskom credits his work as part of the reason the company's own numbers finally turned around.

Will this change your Eskom bill?

Not directly. One executive's pay or retirement does not set your tariff. Eskom's electricity price is set by the energy regulator, Nersa, which is due to rule on the 2027/28 tariff increase by 26 November 2026.

What does affect your bill is Eskom's broader spending plans, including the utility's push to add up to 6,000 MW of solar power and batteries through private partners. Whoever takes over as CFO will be the one signing off on how that gets paid for.

Who replaces him, and what do they inherit?

Eskom has not named a successor. Cassim will keep acting as CFO until the board appoints one, the company says.

Whoever gets the job inherits a utility that is finally making money, after more than a decade of losses and blackouts. They also inherit the question Cassim's own payslip just raised: Should a state power company straining under R111.6 billion in unpaid municipal debt hand its outgoing finance chief a pension top-up bigger than most people's life savings, with no public vote and barely a press release?